Chapter 135: Chapter 133: Heavy hangs the shadow of the truth over wet hearts

Hineni floats in a place that is rather indistinct.

 

“You WILL stop this game,” hisses a voice greedily in the darkness. “Hineni is mine.” Obscura.

 

Someone laughs playfully off from the other end of the void that he finds himself inside of. “As if that’s what you care about. I had him first. I’ve always had him first,” explains the voice, belonging to the frog-god. “He’s my brother. You just want him to get to me.”

 

Hineni looks around at the void that he is in. It’s just empty blackness with some things floating around here and there. There are some pieces of furniture and some scraps of metal, a door and some bricks — oddities like that. But nothing is coherent.

 

This seems to be some sort of odd dimensional plane created by the gods and their magic, akin to the ones he had been in several times before.

 

Reality is very hard to keep track of these days.

 

“— Well, here I am,” finishes Nekyia.

 

“That is a filthy frog lie,” hisses the owl-god. “You will not poison Hineni’s heart with your foul frog-waters!”

 

“Oh?” asks Nekyia. “But poisoning his mind is okay, then?”

 

— There’s a loud crash above his head, and Hineni looks as the void erupts into a violent explosion of colors near the top, as two forces collide against each other.

 

“Just checking,” laughs the frog-god.

 

Hineni looks at the floating door in front of himself and grabs the handle, pulling it open.

 

Despite the fact that he can quite literally see past the door, as there are no walls of any kind in the void, inside of the door is another room.

 

He looks up one more time and then steps in through the opening, trying to orient himself in body and soul.

 

---

 

Rhine stands before him.

 

“Hey,” says Rhine, lifting a hand.

 

“Hey,” replies Hineni, looking around at the void that is taking on the shape of the old house in the old city again. But it’s loose and disheveled, the walls float roughly in the right places, but with gaps between them, through which the ink of nothingness remains visible. He remembers who Rhine is. But he’s pretty sure this isn’t the real Rhine. “You fake?”

 

“Fake?” asks the boy. He points at himself with his thumb. “This here is the real RHINE! The river-wizard!” he proclaims proudly, a smug smile on his face.

 

Hineni blinks and then looks down. He points at the Rhine’s foot. “Boy. I don’t know how to tell you this, but you forgot your box.” Rhine looks down at the spot where his foot hangs up in the air, but finds nothing to press itself down onto. “The real Rhine wouldn’t have made that mistake.”

 

“Ah, crap…” mutters the blue haired boy. “I’m not real?” he asks, looking up at Hineni with a confused gaze on his face.

 

Hineni consolingly puts a hand on Rhine’s shoulder and keeps walking. “Sorry, champ. We all have this moment once in life. This one was yours.”

 

Rhine sighs and then runs after him.

 

— the ‘sky’ above their heads roars with thunder as two primal energies collide with one another, locked in a fight that neither of the two of them down below can perceive.

 

“They’re really going at it,” says Rhine.

 

Hineni nods and keeps walking. “Yup.”

 

“Should we be… worried?” Rhine walks next to him. “I mean, you know? Because of the owl-god?” He points at the sky. “Shouldn’t we help her?” he asks. “I mean, you know, with her being your wife and all. Also, about that-”

 

“Cut me some slack, Rhine,” says Hineni, stopping him. “How the hell do you expect me to help her fight a literal god?” he asks, pointing at the abstract, ethereal void that they’re in. “I can’t even see them.”

 

“Hmm…” Rhine thinks for a while. “Well, you know how god-magic is,” says the boy.

 

“Fucky?”

 

“Fucky,” replies Rhine, nodding. “I bet if you go through wherever this is, you’ll come out somewhere.” Rhine nods his head toward the corridor of doors around them.

 

Hineni looks at the doors. “Which one do I take?”

 

Rhine shrugs. “So… you’re not mad about the idea that maybe you’ve been mind-controlled into this life by the owl-god, the same way that the frog-god was trying to do?”

 

Hineni sighs, rubbing the back of his head.

 

It’s a confusing question.

 

But why is it confusing?

 

If it is true that their relationship was built up on an entirely false foundation, a lie that spanned the entire thing from start to finish, then, by all accounts, he should be furious and heartbroken. But… he’s just kind of in the moment and blank, really.

 

Hineni shrugs.

 

“Rhine, I know we chatted here and there, but maybe when I get back to the real you, we should have ‘the talk’,” says Hineni. “You’re getting to about that age where you’ll have these kinds of specific problems.”

 

“You mean women fighting themselves to the death to be the first one to gaslight me into a relationship?” asks Rhine.

 

Hineni stops, standing there for a moment. He looks back at Rhine. “Yeah, if you keep your looks and confidence, probably.”

 

Rhine waves him off. “That’s okay, I already know about all that stuff,” he says. “Sockel says that I ‘need to learn how the world works, because I’m a sheltered cry-baby mama’s boy who’s gonna get eaten alive without her.’”

 

Hineni lifts an eyebrow. “Ah, right. Good old reliable Sockel,” says the man. “Great. It would have been awkward if I had to do it.”

 

“But I still want to know how you… you know…” Rhine points at the sky where the gods are fighting each other. “’Come home to roost’. Like… how does it work? Don’t owls have a cloaca?” He walks after Hineni. “And… I mean… when she’s transformed into a person, what does she have? Owl pieces or human pieces?” asks Rhine.

 

Hineni looks at him and grabs the handle of a door. “Boy. What happens between you and someone else stays in the bedroom, you hear me?” he asks. “It’s about mutual respect.”

 

“Oh, Sockel said that too,” says Rhine, shrugging.

 

Hineni opens the door. “What the hell is she teaching you?”

 

“Not allowed to tell you. Life stuff,” replies Rhine.

 

Hineni sighs and pulls open the door. It’s door number five.

 

Sockel stands there.

 

“I’ll take it from here, twerp,” says the elf.

 

“Okay. See you guys later,” says Rhine. “I’m gonna… uh… Hmm…” He looks at the void. “Hey. Will I stop existing if you leave?”

 

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“Yeah, probably,” replies Hineni. “Not existing isn’t so bad though,” he explains. “I did it all the time before I was born.”

 

“Oh, nice, uh.” Rhine shrugs. “Okay. Bye.”

 

“See you on the other side, Rhine,” says Hineni, stepping through the door.

 

---

 

The man stands inside of the old adventurer’s guild, the one that had belonged to the frogs. The walls, the floors, and all of the furniture are incoherent and jumbled.

 

The sky crashes above their heads as the gods continue to fight and to argue.

 

“I bet that even if you could kill me,” says Nekyia, the frog-god. “You’d just drop Hineni like a sack of rocks.” There’s a loud clashing. “I gave up my body for him, my life,” she says. “You don’t have any skin in the game.”

 

“Hineni is my chosen!” hisses a voice. “Obscura’s heart is at stake. It is not something that you would understand, FROG!”

 

— A series of violent explosions ring out.

 

Sockel whistles, elbowing him. “Look at you, boss-man,” says Sockel. She walks through the small door to the space behind the counter and pulls out a cart, used to carry food and drinks around the guild by the waiting staff. “To think that the stuttery, sweaty mess who always came to me was such a ladies' man.” Sockel tsks, shaking her head. “Shameful.” With a swipe of her arm, she throws everything off of it and then gracelessly lays herself over it, stomach first, with her legs and arms dangling off of opposite sides as if she were a sack of tubers.

 

“…Really?” asks Hineni.

 

“What?” asks Sockel. “It’s nostalgic. Little old defenseless me, being carried off into the night by a mysterious brute.”

 

Hineni sighs, grabbing the cart. “Rein it in,” he says. “First of all, I’m engaged. Secondly, you’re not the real Sockel.”

 

“And thirdly?” asks Sockel.

 

“Hell if I know,” replies Hineni. “Fuck it. Thirdly, it would be weird, right?” he asks, looking at her head dangling off the side of the cart. She shrugs. “I feel like it would be weird. We’re business only.”

 

“Guess so,” replies Sockel. She stretches herself a bit and then yawns. “Plus it would be super strange with your wife here and all.”

 

“Is this some messed up thing that I have in my subconscious?” he asks, looking at Sockel, who is still laid over the cart.

 

“Don’t ask me, boss-man. I just run the numbers. Do you want it to be?” she asks.

 

“Okay. Don’t make this worse than it is,” replies Hineni, carting her down the hallway.

 

Sockel rolls her eyes, turning her head to watch where they’re going. “We’re all human here,” she says. The elf reaches over into a shelf they pass by, pulling out a ledger from it. “So, the south, eh?” she asks. “I told you it was a bunch of wobbly-woo. Look where we ended up.”

 

“I get why you like books and numbers now,” says Hineni. “Living down in the deep forest in nature all of your life must be hell.”

 

“You have no idea,” replies Sockel, flipping through the pages of the ledger. “Did you get that note that I passed you?”

 

“Sure did,” replies Hineni, remembering the list of names he had gotten in his last session of memories, just before. “I think I lost it though.”

 

“Did you figure it out?” she asks, tilting her head.

 

“Sure did,” repeats Hineni, nodding to her. “I mean, it was literally spelled out for me.”

 

She smiles. “Funny business, huh?” asks Sockel. “How life can spin around on you like that, right?” The elf pulls out a page from the ledger and then tosses the rest of the book over her shoulder, into the void.

 

“Speaking of business,” begins Hineni. “Who are you really working for, Sockel?” he asks. “You’ve been gaming me from the start, just like them,” says Hineni, pointing at the sky that is erupting in chaotic violence.

 

Sockel rolls around onto her back. She folds her legs in together and then rotates so that her head is between his hands as he pushes the cart. The elf lifts her arms, grabbing onto his elbows as she looks up his way. “Come ooon~,” coos Sockel “You know that your Auntie Sockel only wants the best for you.”

 

“You work for it, don’t you?” he asks, looking at her.

 

She lifts a hand from his arm and holds it to her lips, blowing softly past it. “You gonna make me talk?”

 

“Okay. Wow. I had no idea this was a thing I had in my brain. Weird.”

 

“Just nature, boss-man,” says Sockel, shrugging. “Happens when people break up. It’s called a ‘rebound’. The aftermath gets rough.”

 

“Obscura and I are not breaking up,” says Hineni, stopping the cart.

 

Sockel tilts her head, staring at him as he stands there, physically staring at her, but his mind is elsewhere.

 

If it is true, if he has really been… faked into living this life together with the owl-god, then what does that mean about… everything? Can this be fixed? Does he want it to be fixed? How does he feel about all of this?

 

Hineni rubs his chest, wondering, but he doesn’t feel anything.

 

He’s just blank.

 

“God-magic,” says Sockel. He blinks, looking back at her. “You’re being emotionally numbed by god-magic,” explains the elf. “Why do you think you dragged us to a literal war-zone without second thoughts?” She shrugs. “I wanted to retire. This isn’t what I imagined at all.”

 

“Yeah…” says Hineni. “I wanted to live.” He looks around the area. “This isn’t what I imagined either.”

 

He pushes the cart towards the end of the hall. There is a big hole in the floor rather than another door leading anywhere.

 

“There’s another way, you know?” asks Sockel. “Forget the owl, forget the frog. Just put your faith in little old Sockel. Have I ever let you down?”

 

“You haven’t. Ever,” says Hineni. “Gods bless you, Sockel. I’d be lost without you. But now that it’s coming down for you to either deliver me to your client or for you to maybe do what you really think is best for me, it’s hard to say. I just can’t tell what you really want to happen.” He shakes his head. “Is this all a con for the sake of your gig, or do you really like us?”

 

“I told you the big secret about the names, didn’t I?” asks Sockel.

 

“You did,” concedes Hineni, thinking back to the list again.

 

“Would I have done that if I had bad intentions?” she asks.

 

“Well, considering that you aren’t the real Sockel and that my own mind is filled with self-loathing… yeah, maybe, actually,” replies Hineni. “I’ve been betrayed a lot today. You understand.”

 

Sockel shrugs. “Fair.” The elf sighs and spins around, sitting upright. She hands him the piece of paper that she had taken from the ledger before. “I think you’ll want this,” she says, looking over her shoulder towards the pit. “You know who’s next.”

 

“Eilig?” guesses Hineni, looking down at the page. It’s the same exact note he had before.

 

Sockel smiles, patting a hand against his chest. “How did you guess that?”

 

“A little bird told me,” sighs the man, looking down at the black hole in the floor that icy, cold vapors rise up out of. “Sockel…” He looks down at her. “I know you aren’t real. But whatever the hell happens after this, you take care of Rhine,” says the man as he steps past the cart, leaving her behind on top of it.

 

“No worries,” says Sockel. “It’s already in the contract.” She nods to him.

 

Hineni looks at the page in his hand and then at the hole, and then steps down into it. Icy vapors surround him.

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